German director Wim Wenders mentioned on Thursday filmmakers should keep out of politics and deal with altering how folks assume, on the begin of the Berlin Film Festival.
Considered extra politically minded than its counterparts in Venice and Cannes, the pageant has been repeatedly criticized by pro-Palestinian activists for not taking an overt stance on Gaza, in distinction to the conflict in Ukraine and the state of affairs in Iran.
Asked for his view on the German authorities’s place on Gaza, Wenders mentioned: “We have to stay out of politics because if we made movies that are dedicatedly political, we enter the field of politics, but we are the counterweight to politics.”
Germany’s response to the Gaza conflict has been criticized as overly cautious, largely owing to a permanent sense of guilt for the Nazi Holocaust.
Speaking to journalists on the pageant, the place he’s head of this 12 months’s seven-member worldwide jury, the 80-year-old mentioned: “We have to do the work of people and not the work of politicians.”
The livestream of the press convention reduce out shortly after the query on Gaza, prompting the journalist who requested it to accuse the pageant of censorship.
Organizers issued an apology for what they mentioned have been technical issues and mentioned they might make the total recording obtainable on-line.
Wenders, whose movie profession spans from “Wings of Desire” 4 many years in the past to 2023’s “Perfect Days”, mentioned being on the jury in Berlin was a novel expertise.
“Because in Berlin, you can be sure you see more facets of the world than in any other festival. And that’s the great strength of the Berlinale,” mentioned Wenders.
Organizers have repeatedly confronted questions on Gaza and requires a boycott by pro-Palestinian teams. In flip, the closing ceremony in 2024 drew criticism from German politicians after a number of winners expressed solidarity with the Palestinians and criticized Israel’s actions after the October 7, 2023 assault by the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
“Movies can change the world. Not in a political way. No movie has really changed any politician’s idea. But we can change .. the idea that people have of how they should live,” the veteran director mentioned.
The pageant begins on Thursday night with the opening movie “No Good Men” and culminates with the closing ceremony on February 21, when Wenders and his jury will award the Golden Bear prime prize to one among a complete of twenty-two movies in competitors.
Four members of this 12 months’s jury are from Asia: Min Bahadur Bham, who directed the pageant’s first Nepalese competitors movie, “Shambhala”; South Korean actor Bae Doona; Indian director, producer and archivist Shivendra Singh Dungarpur; and Hikari, who lately directed Japan-set drama “Rental Family.”
U.S. director Reinaldo Marcus Green, whose biographical sports activities drama “King Richard” earned six Oscar nominations, and famend Polish producer Ewa Puszczynska, spherical out the jury.
© Thomson Reuters 2026.